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I told him that perhaps it was inertia which kept me from learning. He wanted to know the meaning of the word "inertia". I read to him from my dictionary: "The tendency of matter to remain at rest if at rest, or, if moving, to keep moving in the same direction, unless affected by some outside force.""'Unless affected by some outside force,'" he repeated. "That's about the best word you've found. I've told you already, only a crackpot would undertake the task of becoming a man of knowledge of his own accord. A sober-headed man has to be tricked into doing it.""I'm sure there must be scores of people who would gladly undertake the task," I said."Yes, but those don't count. They are usually cracked. They are like gourds that look fine from the outside and yet they would leak the minute you put pressure on them, the minute you filled them with water."

--Carlos Castaneda recounts a conversation with Don Juan Matus from the book A Seperate Reality